Their point about competition is an interesting one. Usually where you find one payday lender, you find many. If there were a lot of profit in it, wouldn't some

Their point about competition is an interesting one. Usually where you find one payday lender, you find many. If there were a lot of profit in it, wouldn't someone arbitrage the interest rates and win all the business for themselves? Then again, that's a bit of a straw man argument. We don't let people buy and sell organs, regardless of whether we could ensure that they were paid a fair price in an efficient market. Maybe the answer is, if the true break-even interest rate to lend to this market is 300%, then perhaps the moral answer is to not participate.